Prior to my invention, various air deodorizing and ventilating devices have been proposed for removing odor laden air from an upwardly opening toilet closet bowl, and for deodorizing the odor ladened air before it is discharged into the atmosphere. Representative teachings of such prior proposals are found in the following U.S. patents: U.S. Pat. No. 2,846,696 issued on Aug. 12, 1958 to J. R. Herriott; U.S. Pat. No. 3,087,168 issued on Apr. 30, 1963 to M. A. Huso; U.S. Pat. No. 3,230,551 issued on Jan. 25, 1966 to R. A. Kopp; U.S. Pat. No. 3,689,944 issued on Sept. 12, 1972 to C. R. Clayton; U.S. Pat. No. 3,763,505 issued on Oct. 9, 1973 to J. P. Zimmerman; U.S. Pat. No. 3,790,970 issued on Feb. 12, 1974 to D. Bendersky et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 3,913,150 issued on Oct. 21, 1975 to C. E. Poister et al.; and my own U.S. Pat. No. 4,166,298 issued on Sept. 4, 1979.
Most of the foregoing patents disclose toilet ventilating devices having unsightly external appendages. Such exterior parts, aside from having a negative impact on appearance, are troublesome to keep clean and sanitary.
Some of the foregoing devices cannot be retrofit to all conventional toilets. For example, my own patent teaches a deodorizer unit which can only be adapted to toilets having a water tank and an overflow conduit.
The Clayton patent discloses a deodorizing apparatus which does not have the aforementioned disadvantages. However, this device has limited effectiveness owing to the intrinsic nature of the rear extension of the lid, which extension serves as an air duct when the lid is raised. The rear extension necessarily lies to the rear of the toilet seat, and is quite removed from the interior of the toilet bowl.
All of the foregoing patents disclose devices which have the disadvantage that they operate each time the toilet is used, whether or not deodorization is needed or desired. In a battery operated device, such as I propose, this greatly reduces the time between battery charging or battery replacement. Furthermore, this greatly reduces the life expectancy of the fan motor.